Statutes: Resale Prices Act, 1964
| Date | 01 March 1965 |
| Author | V. L. Korah |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1965.tb01055.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1965 |
STATUTES
RESALE
PRICES
ACT,
1964
WHETHER
or
not it is contrary to the public interest for individual
suppliers to maintain resale prices has been the subject of con-
siderable controversy since the war. In
1949
the majority of the
Lloyd Jacob Committee gave its qualified approval to the practice
hereafter called rpm).* The Monopolies Commission has never
been asked to consider individual rpm in general, but like the
Lloyd Jacob Committee, it recommended in its Report on Collective
Discrimination
8
that collective enforcement of rpm through stop
lists and fines imposed by trade courts should be forbidden. In
three reports on particular industries
4
it has approved of the
practice and
in
three others, two of them recent, it has disapproved
of it.5
In
1956,
collective enforcement by means of stop lists was made
illegal although not criminal by section
24
of the Restrictive Trade
Practices Act; but individual enforcement was made much easier
The first was
published by the Federation of British Industries last August. The fourth
edition of Professor
B.
S.
Pamey's Hobart Paper,
Resale
Price Maintenance
contains a postscript mentioning several of the difficultiea that
may
arise
under the Act. The second edition of
J.
Lever,
The
Law
of
Restrictive
Practices and
Resale
Price Maintenance, is the first commentary covering both
the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956, and the 1964 Act in considerable
detail. Other monographs have been published by
I.
A.
Macdonald and Lord
Meston.
I
wrote
a
comment rather longer than this in [1965]
J.B.L.
6-14.
2
Report of the Committee
on
Resale Price Maintenance, 1949, Cmd. 7696, chap.
8.
It recommended that only those suppliers wbo mark goods with their own
brand should be allowed to impose or enforce rpm. At that time
the
non-
signer provision enabling suppliers to
sue
retailers with whom they had made
no
contract was not in existence. The Committee also recommended that the
government should invite consultations to ensure bhat rpm did
not
prevent
flexibility in retailing. Mr. Henry Smith went much further in his cogent
note
of
dissent (pp.
34-35)
in which
he
etated his reasons
for
forbidding the
practice altogether.
Since
the 1956 Act expressly permitted individual enforcement under
8.
25 the
C,ommission has since taken the view that special factors must exist if it is
to recommend the abandonment of individually enforced rpm,
e.g.,
Report on
the Supply of Tea, December 20, 1956, para. 171. In its Report on the Supply
of Cigarettes and Tobacco, etc., July
4,
1961, the majority
also
approved of the
practice (para. 568),
but
many people
find
Professor
a.
C.
Allen's
note of
dissent at paras. 612-618 more convincing. His arguments are of very general
application.
5
Report
on
the Supply and Export
of
Pneumatic Tyres, December
8,
1955, the
majority of five
at
para. 497 and the minority of four at paras. 557-568.
Report
on
the Supply
of
Electrical Equipment for Mechanically Propelled
Land Vehicles, December
18,
1963, paras. 1020-1027.
Report
on
the Supply
of
Wallpaper, January 21, 1964, paras. 176-181.
On
the attitude
of
the
Monopolies Commission generally, see
P.
H.
Guenault and
J.
M.
Jackson,
The
Control
of
Monopoly
in
the
United Kingdom,
pp. 93-96.
1
Several good comments have already been written
on
the Act.
8
(1955) Cmd. 9504.
4
Report. on the Supply
of
Dental Goods, December
1.
19.50, para.
230.
193
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